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Devin tsked. “Have some class, man. He’s trying to be a good guy.” He turned to me. “Any timeline on her new place?”
I shrugged. “Even if she finds a new apartment she likes, which she hasn’t, it’ll take a while to close on it, and she hasn’t had much time to look since she went back to work. I’d offer to help her find something, but I don’t want her to feel pressured to leave.”
We paused to order our steaks—Coleman’s specialty—while I downed another swallow of scotch. After the waiter left, Devin tapped his fingers on the table and gave me one of his lofty, airline-pilot looks.
“I’ve been thinking about you and your ‘family friend’ Alice.” His light blue eyes fixed on me in the noisy restaurant. “You need to say something to her about your kinky fuckery, you know, slip it into some conversation. At least hint at it.”
“Hintat it?”
“Yeah, like, give her a Dom look, or play with your belt while she’s around. What if she’s kinky too? What if she’s a Grade A submissive masochist? I mean, if she’s attracted to you…”
I’d told them a little about our Strad night makeout session, although I hadn’t told them about her wanting to marry me, because they’d never leave that alone.
“I’m not exactly the ‘Gallery’ Milo when I’m around her,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter. The ‘Gallery’ Milo is still there,” said Fort. “There’s always the undercurrent. That’s why kinky radar works, why perverts usually recognize each other.”
I pointed at the two of them. “Both of you met your matches in or around BDSM clubs. It had nothing to do with radar.”
“All Fort’s saying is that she’s into you, and you’re into her. You have been for a long time. There’s got to be something going on there, you know, subliminally. Does she have any submissive-like traits?”
Fort and I both snorted at “submissive-like traits,” but I considered Devin’s question. She definitely triggered the Dominant in me. It was something about her sweetness, and the light, trusting quality of her character. And the one time I’d kissed her…
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d melted against me when I kissed her, like she would have accepted anything I did to her. That was why she scared me, because I imagined shewaswilling to accept whatever I wanted to do, whatever urge I wanted to play out on her yielding body.
Fuck, I was getting hard. I shifted in my chair and drank more scotch, not that alcohol helped.
“It’s possible she has some submissive tendencies,” I admitted. “It’s actually probable, but I don’t know if she’s into pain, which is my main fetish. I don’t know if she’s a masochist.”
“Come on, Milo,” Dev scoffed. “She’s a classical violinist.”
“Joking aside,” said Fort, as I frowned at Devin, “we don’t know that she’snota masochist. If you came out to her with the BDSM side of yourself, and she was amenable, you could start playing around with power exchange scenes and see how far things developed.”
“But where would they end?” I asked. “Where do our power exchange hookups always end? At The Gallery, with consensual non-consent, heavy pain, and sharing partners, and I don’t…”
Fort and Devin exchanged another amused look. “You don’t want to do that to her,” Fort said, finishing my sentence. “Hmm, where have I heard that before? Maybe from every Dom at The Gallery who’s started a serious relationship? The ones who love each other find a way to make it work.”
“You don’t understand. I really can’t do those things to her.”
“Why not?”
They both looked at me, eyebrows raised. I drained the last of my scotch and banged it on the table. “Because she’s Lilly-Alice Nyquist, and she trusts me, and she thinks I’m this amazing guy.”
“You are pretty amazing,” Dev said, batting his eyes at me.
“It’s your angsty long hair, and your eyes, and the way you make those instruments,” Fort agreed, playing along.
“Fuck you both.”
“Here’s the thing,” said Dev. “You keep saying she’s this untouchable family friend, but I’m pretty sure she wants you to touch her. Like,reallytouch her.”
“I wish I could.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s partly the family thing, the friendship dynamic. I’ve known this girl my whole life. My parents dragged me to her fucking christening when I was in first grade. Her christening, you know, crying infant, baptismal font, long white dress?”
“We’re degenerates, but we know what christenings are, Massimiliano,” Dev drawled.
Fort’s hazel eyes widened at a sudden, perverse thought. “How many of us get a chance to work over a sub we met at herchristening? I don’t understand how you’re not all over this opportunity, man.”
I called for another scotch, and they changed the subject to ward off my rising temper. They talked about work instead, and their blissfully well-adjusted relationships, which only made me feel worse. We made it through the salad and main course before they started again on my fucked-up situation with my painfully tempting roommate.
